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Wednesday, 24 April 2013

Interview with J.E. Fishman, author of The Dark Pool

I've the author of The Dark Pool, J.E. Fishman as my interviewee; Astute's first. I've enjoyed several thriller novels, and The Dark Pool too was one of them - a book which I particularly loved for its characters, the plot, the writing style and the financial element in the book and inevitably, ended up with a high rating in my review.

I hope you enjoy going through the interview!

Andy Anderson: Before
going into the specific questions, I’d like to ask you what sort of books you
like to read – just to see whether there is any correlation between your
interests and your creations.

J.E. Fishman: I read
pretty widely. Although, of course, I read mysteries and thrillers, I don’t
stick to one genre. I’m more of a grazer. Recently I’ve been reading a bit of
science fiction and historical fiction, for example. I’m sure there’s some kind
of correlation between my interests and my creations, but it’s not based upon
what I read, per se. It’s more based upon my interest in the human condition,
the challenges regular people face or can be made to face.

AA: The
Dark Pool is your third novel and from what I understand, it is not the first
thriller that you’re crafted but, it seemingly is the first novel of yours
centered on investments, securities and some dark elements of the financial markets
largely unknown to the outside world. What inspired you to write a novel based
on this theme?

JEF: A few
things. First, like so many people, I was appalled at the way the financial
meltdown happened, beginning with financial machinations and ending with so
many regular folks feeling pain. Second, I’ve followed the stock market for a
long time as an investor, and it intrigues me. Finally, for two decades I lived
in the Hudson Valley in an area that was rife with Wall Street traders and
hedge fund managers. I saw some of these people around socially, and I got to
know a bit about what makes them tick. All these things came together to pique
my interest in the subject.

AA: The
Dark Pool cartel and the Q scores formed a significant part of the novel – did it
also take an equally large amount of time for you to research deeply on the
same to put into a novel?

JEF: I
should emphasize that putting dark pools and Q scores together is my own
fictional conceit, but each of these elements is quite real in its own right.
The research wasn’t hard. These things are out there. What a storyteller does
is use real-life elements as a point of departure to explore larger truths.

AA: The
main protagonists of the novel, Shoog Clay and the young running back, Antwon
Meeps, both are involved in American football, and it is more than just a hobby
for both of them. But the sport hardly had any role in the novel but for Clay’s
analogies, though it serendipitously turned out to be an advantage for someone
who doesn’t follow the sport, nevertheless, I’d like to ask you, was it a part
of the original script or was it merely a conscious decision to ignore it?

JEF: The
book isn’t about football. It’s about two guys who are having their lives
manipulated by powers that are unknown to them and initially beyond their
comprehension. I had to give Shoog a profession that held the prospects of
future fame, so I made him a successful coach at a level where there were great
prospects in front of him – if only he would take them. Once I made him a
football coach, however, he had to think as a football coach. So that’s how he
interacts with his player and that’s the frame of reference he uses sometimes
in trying to communicate.

AA: I’ve
heard many say that character building is what makes a novel and it also
happens to be the most difficult part of it. The characters of The Mean, Clay,
Meeps, Sark or Jagus, how did you go about creating them – an allusion to your
own acquaintances, plain imagination or is it a combination of both?

JEF: Character is not the color of someone’s hair or even his or her personality
quirks. It’s the choices we make as people. Once I establish basic
characterizations, the character comes from the actions those characters must
take in a given situation. The key to that is creating conflict that tests
them. They must react to that conflict in a way that is unique to them. This is
what novelists mean by the character taking over the story. Once you get into
the narrative, you can tell if a decision that occurs to you will ring true or
not, because of the decisions that character made up to that point.

AA: The
antagonist, Jagus dies in the end of the novel and Antwon’s dreams are
realised, but coming to the other end, Shoog lost his godchild, Antwon lost his
friend and teammate (the previous and the current case, both being Romero),
Shoog also happens to be the only surviving Clay sibling now – would you
consider the ending of your novel to be a happy ending?

JEF: A happy
ending doesn’t require that every character has a happy outcome. What makes it
a happy ending is that a measure of justice prevails and order is restored in
the world. So, yes, it’s a happy ending.

AA: Many
authors try and bring about social issues through their stories – such as Ian
Rankin, a crime novelist whom I like, says that he brings out all the social
problems in Edinburgh through his John Rebus novels. The issue you’ve chosen
too, is very relevant, with financial markets playing a significant role in
anybody’s lives today, did you also have a motive of throwing some light on
social issues through The Dark Pool?

JEF: Ian
Rankin’s novels probably do it with a lighter touch than I did in this novel. I
definitely was looking for a way to dramatize the fact that in the modern
financial system the actions of traders have consequences for regular people –
people that the traders may not ever meet and almost certainly don’t really
care about. The trader is focused on his trade, not on outcomes for society.

AA: To
conclude the interview, I’d like to ask you, what sort of advice would you like
give to the aspiring authors (includes myself), particularly the genre which is
your forte, the thriller genre?

JEF: The
advice is the same for thrillers or any other genre. Distinguish between the
style of writers whom you admire – which is unique to them – and the techniques
they use, which are universal and available to us all. In other words, seek to
write fresh but learn the craft.

Thanks a lot, J.E. Fishman, for sparing time and helping Astute get its first author interview.